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Apologia, Image Repair and Rhetoric in the Defence of Electoral Defeat
Kwabena Sarfo Sarfo-Kantankah*
Department of English, Faculty of Arts, College of Humanities and Legal Studies, University of Cape Coast
Corresponding Author: Kwabena Sarfo Sarfo-Kantankah, E-mail: esarfo@ucc.edu.gh
ABSTRACT
Using the concepts of apologia, image repair and rhetoric, this paper examines the strategies
employed by a former president of the Republic of Ghana to simultaneously maintain his
reputation after losing the 2016 Ghanaian general elections and campaign for re-lection as the
standard bearer of his party. The paper nds that the former president did not accept responsibility
for the electoral loss, but used several indirect ways to deny responsibility for the defeat. He
employed bolstering, accusation/attack, playing the victim, throwing a challenge and the God’s
will factor as defence strategies in order to repair his image. He exploited the Aristotelian appeals
of logos, ethos and pathos to boost his persuasion. In doing so, he deployed several rhetorical
tools such as metaphor, allusion, rhetorical questions and parallelism to enhance the expression
of the defence strategies. The analysis reveals that, as noted in the literature, some of the image
repair strategies espoused by Benoit (1995, 2015), for example, outright denial and mortication,
hardly apply to political contexts – the former President’s defence was indirectly expressed.
Thus, the paper concludes that combining the concepts of apologia, image repair and rhetoric
in the analysis of political discourse can illuminate political discourse analysis. The paper has
implications for communicating defence, reputation repair and political rhetoric.
INTRODUCTION
In December 2016, Ghana saw one of the most keenly con-
tested presidential and parliamentary elections in Ghana’s
fourth republican democracy (since December 1992). It was
the rst time an incumbent president and government lost an
election in the rst round of polls. The defeat was blamed on
the then President and presidential candidate John Mahama
of the National Democratic Congress (NDC). The Ghanaian
media were inundated with reasons why the NDC, led by
President Mahama, lost the elections, with a large number
of people, including his own political party members accus-
ing him for the electoral defeat. The attacks and accusations
against Mahama became more intense when he declared his
intention to re-contest the NDC’s standard bearer race. Prior
to Mahama declaring his intention to contest again, the NDC
had organised several Unity Walks in all the ten regions of
Ghana. As noted by President Mahama, “the purpose of this
walk is a solidarity walk; it is a unity walk; it is to raise the
morale of our party; it is to engage our party members so that
they are conscious of the re-organization that is taking place”
(NDC Unity Walk, Wa, Upper-West region, 7th April, 2018).
At each of the Unity Walks, John Mahama gave a speech in
which he sought to give reasons why the NDC lost the 2016
elections and how they should prepare and bounce back to
contest and win the 2020 elections. Each of the speeches can
Published by Australian International Academic Centre PTY.LTD.
Copyright (c) the author(s). This is an open access article under CC BY license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
http://dx.doi.org/10.7575/aiac.alls.v.10n.3p.1
be considered as multi-purposed, since Mahama sought to
defend himself, repair his damaged reputation and campaign
for re-election as the NDC’s standard bearer for the 2020 elec-
tions. Thus, a close examination of the speeches brings to bear
how the concepts of apologia, image repair and rhetoric come
into play. Based on these concepts, this paper examines sev-
en of Mahama’s speeches in order to explore how Mahama
tried to defend himself, regain his reputation and prepare the
grounds for his comeback. Combining the three concepts is
illuminating because, notwithstanding the copious scholarly
attention on apologia, political discourse, political communi-
cation and image repair (cf. Achter, 2000; Roland & Jerome,
2004; Boyer, 2011), there is hardly any study that concurrently
deploys the concepts of apologia, image repair and rhetoric to
analyse political speeches. This deprives us of a comprehen-
sive understanding of how politicians simultaneously engage
in defence, image repair and campaign rhetoric. Considering
that the world has become a global village with so much so-
cio-political interconnectedness, studying political discourse
in contexts such as Ghana will help expound global debates
on the ways in which politicians manage their reputation in
the face of scandals and failures. This is because what is de-
fensible, reputable, as, for example, admission of culpability,
denial and evasion of responsibility, differs from society to
society, since social values and morals are culture specic.
Advances in Language and Literary Studies
ISSN: 2203-4714
www.alls.aiac.org.au
ARTICLE INFO
Article history
Received: January 12, 2019
Accepted: April 04, 2019
Published: June 30, 2019
Volume: 10 Issue: 3
Advance access: May 2019
Conicts of interest: None
Funding: None
Key words:
Apologia,
Image Repair,
Rhetoric,
Defence,
Electoral Defeat
2 ALLS 10(3):1-10
APOLOGIA, IMAGE REPAIR AND RHETORICAL
THEORIES
Apologia is dened as “the speech of self-defense” initiated
by an attack on a person’s character that calls for defence,
in which he/she “attempts to reconcile a derogatory charge
with a favourable view of his character” (Ware & Linkuel,
1973, p. 274, 275). Apologia is said to have originated from
ancient Greek rhetoric. As noted by Towner (2009, p. 437):
The term apologia has been traced back to the ancient
Greek root word apologos, meaning “a story” (Partridge,
1977, p. 347). Tavuchis (1991) explained that it rst ap-
pears in the Oxford English Dictionary as apoloyia –
apo, meaning “away,” and loyia, meaning “speaking” –
and is dened as a speech in defense or as a vindication
of a person (p. 15). In ancient Greece, citizens regarded
such a defense as an important genre of rhetoric. Pla-
to, Isocrates, and Aristotle characterized apologia as a
specic genre in which an orator defends himself or his
actions against an accusation (Ryan, 1982).
Thus, apologia is a defensive rhetoric, and defence is one
of the means of maintaining reputation and how the defence
is communicated is essential for the success, or otherwise, of
repairing one’s image. In fact, Kruse (1981, p. 279) includes
image repair in the denition of apologia, viz: a “public dis-
course produced whenever a prominent person attempts to
repair his character if it has been directly or indirectly dam-
aged”. Benoit’s Benoit’s (1995, 1997, 2000, 2004, 2015)
image repair theory actually draws largely on the principles
of apologia. For example, the image repair theory involves
the features of apologia such as “denial”, “bolstering”, “dif-
ferentiation” and “transcendence” (Ware & Linkuel, 1973,
p. 275). From its classical concentration on legal contexts
(Boyer, 2011), apologia has been applied to corporate cri-
sis communication or organisational apologia (cf. Roland &
Jerome, 2004), and political contexts, as a result of political
scandals in contemporary politics (cf. Achter, 2000). Achter
(2000) attributes the increased studies on political apologia
to the conuence of changes in the media coverage of politi-
cal campaigns, and the ubiquity of political scandals compli-
cates traditional studies of apologia.
Dened as the “reputation of a person (or group, or organi-
zation) held by the audience, shaped by the words and actions
of that person, as well as by the discourse and behaviour of
other relevant actors” (Benoit, 1997, p. 251), image (or face, or
reputation) is essential for maintaining one’s status and respect
in society. When people feel that their image or reputation has
been threatened or damaged, they nd several ways of repair-
ing or restoring that image. Benoit’s (1995, 1997, 2000, 2004,
2015) image repair theory is a set of principles designed to
examine and for understanding the maintenance of reputation
when it is damaged or threatened. It is an analytic framework
for crisis situations. It comprises the following typology of
strategies (see Benoit, 1995, 2015; Len-Rios & Benoit, 2004):
i. Denial, which involves an outright denial or shifting
blame such that responsibility is assigned to someone
else;
ii. Evasion of responsibility: consisting of claim to prov-
ocation, defeasiblity (claiming a lack of control over
the act), accident (claiming that the act happened by
accident), and good intention (offender claiming that he
had good intentions for the act). All these help to reduce
responsibility for the offensive act.
iii. Reducing offensiveness of the event, which involves
reducing “the degree of ill feeling experienced by
the audience” (Benoit, 1995, p. 77). This strategy has
sub-categories, comprising bolstering (talking about
one’s positives to offset the offensiveness of the act),
minimising negative feelings (claiming that the effects
of the act were exaggerated), differentiation (comparing
the offence to other more serious offences), transcen-
dence (placing the act in a broader, often moral con-
text, to justify a claim of “the end justies the means”
(Len-Rios & Benoit, 2004, p. 97)), attacking the accuser,
and compensation (offering reparation or restitution);
iv. Corrective action, such as restoring the state of affairs
and forbearance; and
v. Mortication, a straightforward apology.
From an initial study of corporate crisis situations and im-
age restoration/repair (Benoit, 1995, 1997), the theory has been
used to explore other domains such a whole country’s image to
individual/personal image repair strategies (Len-Rios & Ben-
oit, 2004), individual (especially celebrities’) crisis communi-
cation and political communication (Sheldon & Sallot, 2008;
Benoit, 2017). According to Stevenson (2009, p. 556), in the
literature on organizational communication, “the specic sit-
uation framing the crisis communication and image repair has
been discussed in terms of different audiences and stakehold-
ers to which crisis responses should be adapted…, different
types of crises requiring different communicative strategies…,
and different cultures and systems of values”.
Sheldon and Sallot (2008) state that research suggests
that some of the strategies may not be applicable in politics,
since politicians, corporate bodies and individual celebrities
have key differences. Sheldon and Sallot argue that for pol-
iticians, openly accepting mistakes can be politically expen-
sive. Benoit (1997, p. 256) admits that due to the potential
litigation threats, politicians may be “less inclined than en-
tertainers to use apology or mortication”. This implies that
which aspects of the theory of image repair are employed
in communicating crisis depends on the context. In other
words, individual and socio-cultural and political differenc-
es determine which aspects of the strategies are relevant for
specic situations. This calls for more research from differ-
ent contexts, making the current study signicant. It explores
the strategies employed by a former president of the Repub-
lic of Ghana to rationalise how and why he lost the 2016
presidential election in order to repair his tainted image.
Studies of how political leaders respond to criticisms
of their character and policies (cf. Towner, 2009) predate
Benoit’s image repair theory. The theory has been explored
through apologia (or self-defence) in the political context
(Benoit, 1997; cf. Len-Rios & Benoit, 2004), comprising
negotiations of guilt, responsibility and social values, social
standing and hierarchy, and of membership in a group, com-
munity, nation, or humankind (Towner, 2009).
Apologia has been considered as a rhetorical genre. For
Abrahams (1968, p. 145), the full analysis of “genre calls
Apologia, Image Repair and Rhetoric in the Defence of Electoral Defeat 3
for the study of organisational elements of both items and
performances”. In this paper, therefore, we are not only inter-
ested in studying the functional issues of defence and image
repair, but also the rhetorical features which Mahama used in
his speeches. Thus, we dene rhetoric as “the use of symbol-
ism and language to ensure that a message is encoded in the
way desired by the communicator”, as a way “to encourage a
change in behaviour” (Lilleker, 2006, p. 182). We also include
the three Aristotelian rhetorical proofs of ethos (appeal to the
character, credibility or moral quality of the speaker), logos
(appeal to logic or reason), and pathos (appeal to audience’s
emotions/feelings) (cf. Ilie, 2004; Charteris-Black, 2014).
Rhetorical analysis helps to explore “the strategic deployment
of shared linguistic resources in a context of contingently un-
folding non-linguistic vents” (Walter, 2017, p. 300). It affords
us the opportunity to examine how Mahama designed his lan-
guage, such as the use of metaphor, for his purpose.
The forgoing indicates a strong connection among apolo-
gia, image repair and rhetoric. This study, therefore, makes
use of an eclectic mix of theoretical approaches of apologia,
image repair and rhetorical theories to measure the overall
strategy employed by Mahama for the maintenance of his
reputation after losing the 2016 elections while attempting to
stage a comeback to contest the 2020 election as the standard
bearer of the opposition NDC party. This study is signicant
because, in spite of the numerous studies on apologia, image
repair and rhetoric, we are yet to see a single study that com-
bines all the three theories. Combining the three in a study
like the current one provides further insights into how these
theories are intertwined and illuminate political discourse and
communication. Again, notwithstanding the proliferation of
studies on political gures and how they manage reputation,
we are yet to see a study on a president who lost an election,
attempted a comeback and, therefore, engaged in a multiple
task of defence, image repair and campaign rhetoric.
DATA AND METHOD OF ANALYSIS
After losing the 2016 general elections, the National Dem-
ocratic Congress (NDC) party organised a series of Unity
Walks across the then ten (10) regions of Ghana in order
to re-organise the grassroots of the Party to prepare for the
2020 general elections. At each of the Walks, John Mahama,
the former President of Ghana, delivered a speech. The data
for this study are transcripts of John Mahama’s speeches
delivered at the Unity Walks. Seven out of the 10 speeches
were downloaded from YouTube (see the links listed after
References), transcribed and analysed.
The study uses content analysis, “an analysis of the con-
tents of a communication” (Fraenkel, Wallen & Hyun, 2012,
p. 502) in order to reveal, among others, the intentions, be-
liefs, attitudes, values, ideas and the psychological state of
communicators (Weber, 1990). It is “the study of recorded
human communications” that seeks to answer the question
“Who says what, to whom, why, how, and with what pur-
pose?” (Babbie, 2005, p. 328). The data analysis helped
to respond to questions relating to the theoretical areas of
apologia and image repair (“why”, “with what purpose”?)
and rhetoric (“how”?). The data were thematically coded to
identify and examine instances of apologia and image repair
strategies and rhetorical features that characterised the data.
The following is a step-by-step description of how the data
were processed and analysed.
i. We downloaded videos of the speeches from YouTube.
ii. We manually transcribed the speeches orthographically
by watching and listening to the videos and speeches.
iii. We coded the speeches by the names of the towns where
they were delivered.
iv. We read through the transcripts to identify instances
of apologia, image repair strategies and rhetorical ele-
ments, and then analysed them.
ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION
An examination of the data indicates that President Maha-
ma did not accept responsibility for the 2016 electoral loss.
The only time he came close to accepting responsibility was
when he met with former appointees of his government in
April 2017, and said: “Of course as the general who led us
into battle, I take ultimate responsibility for our losing the
election and so if it will satisfy those people, blame me for
the loss” (Allotey, 2017, n.p). This is a conditional accep-
tance of responsibility, contingent upon the satisfaction of
those who blamed him for the loss. Thus, throughout the
Unity Walks, he found several ways to repair his image as
being responsible for the electoral defeat. The analysis and
discussion looks at the attempt from two main angles, name-
ly: apologia and image repair (section 4.1), and the rhetorical
tools employed (section 4.2).
Apologia and Image Repair
This section explores the ways in which President Maha-
ma tried to defend himself as not being responsible for the
NDC’s loss of the 2016 elections and how he attempted to
repair his image. We consider the organisation of the Unity
Walks, Mahama’s speeches and the rhetorical strategies as
culminating in apologia. The strategies employed by Maha-
ma included bolstering, accusation/attack, playing the vic-
tim, throwing a challenge and the “God’s will” factor.
Bolstering
Bolstering is one of the ways of reducing the offensiveness
of an act (Benoit, 1995; Len-Rios & Benoit, 2004). It in-
volves talking about ones positives (acclaim – cf. Benoit,
1999, 2017) and strengthening the offended through en-
couragement (Benoit, 1995). As a way of restoring his own
image and that of the Party, the former President attempted
to bolster his image and encourage party members by ex-
plaining to them the need for the Unity Walks, that is, to
ensure solidarity among the members of the Party and “to
raise the morale of the Party and to engage “party mem-
bers so that they are conscious of the re-organization that is
taking place” (NDC Unity Walk, Wa, Upper-West region,
07/04/2018). President Mahama made acclaims (cf. Benoit,
1999, 2017). According to Benoit (1999, 2017), in politi-
cal campaign messages, politicians establish preferability
4 ALLS 10(3):1-10
through acclaim, that is, they talk about their positives so
as to distinguish themselves from their opponents. Exam-
ples 1, 2 and 3 demonstrate how President Mahama made
acclaims; he talks about some of the credible things he did
as president.
Example 1 (Cape Coast, Central region, 05/11/2017):
When I was in ofce, there was a bus branding incident
– 3.6 million Ghana cedis – a minister of state resigned
because of 3.6 million Ghana cedis. In power, when you
come into ofce and you want to cover up, you can cov-
er up. When things happen, you just refuse to investi-
gate them. The toughness of the ght against corruption
is that you are able to take action against your own peo-
ple, and that is what we did when we were in ofce.
Example 2 (Bolgatanga, Upper-East region, 05/05/2018):
When you offer any decisions, they call you all kinds
of unprintable names. But I was not brought up to use
unprintable names against my political opponents. The
language you use in your political discourse is a reec-
tion of your upbringing. If you were brought up well, it
must reect in the language that you use in your politi-
cal discourse.
Example 3 (Wa, Upper-West region, 07/042018):
They will be there till 2021, 7th January and the people
of this country will make a decision and that decision
will be to tell the NDC we know you are the most ca-
pable managers of this country; it is you who bring us
development; it is you who bring us infrastructure; it is
you who make this country move forward and so by the
grace of God, Insha Allah, the year 2020, NDC will win
the election and the mandate of the people to come to
power.
In Example 1, Mahama talks about how he was able to
hold his own appointees accountable, viz: “The toughness of
the ght against corruption is that you are able to take action
against your own people, and that is what we did when we
were in ofce”. This is an appeal to ethics (ethos) (Ilie, 2004;
Charteris-Black, 2014) aimed at rebuilding Mahama’s cred-
ibility. In Example 2, he tells how he was brought up to use
decorous language; while Example 3 is an encouragement
to the members of the NDC to prepare to win the 2020 elec-
tions as the NDC is better at managing the economy than the
NPP, stressing “… by the grace of God, Insha Allah, the year
2020, NDC will win the election and the mandate of the peo-
ple to come to power”. All these are indirect ways of telling
the Party members that he was not responsible for the loss
of the 2016 election, even though he does not mention what
caused their defeat. By talking about his positives, Mahama
attempts to debunk the impression that he was responsible
for the NDC’s defeat.
Accusing, attacking the opponent
The former President accused and attacked the then Oppo-
sition (the NPP, now in government) of embarking on a pro-
pagandist campaign and lies to deceive the people of Ghana
to vote for them, and denunciates the government’s inability
to improve upon the living conditions Ghanaians. Consider
Examples 4 and 5.
Example 4 (Aao, Volta region, 09/06/2018):
My brothers and sisters, in the run up to the election
and since we lost, our opponents are master of lies and
propaganda. Before the 2016 election, they subjected us
to a barrage of propaganda based on lies and fabrication
and even after we have lost, they have forgotten that
they are now in power and that they must concentrate on
governing and stop the propaganda and lies against the
NDC party. Everyday, they cook up some stories to try
and demonize the NDC as a party.
Example 5 (Kumasi, Ashanti region, 28/04/2018):
M’adanfo baako ɛyɛ driver ni. Ɔse ↄyɛ adwuma ma lli-
ing station ɛ sɛ ↄyɛ adwuma a ↄde sika no nyinaa tↄ fuel
ɛnti neɛ ↄde bɛko e no, ↄnnya hwee nnko e. Yɛbaeɛ yi
ara, maame bi ↄtↄn waakye. Ɔse oh, President Mahama,
NDC abrɛ so Waakye no metↄn 7 bowls everyday. Ɔse
ɛnnɛ three mpo ɛyɛ den. Ɛnti waakyefoↄ nso ɛreberɛ.
Kejetiafoↄ nso ɛreberɛ. Magazinefoↄ, ɛnkanee… ɛyɛ zu,
ɛyɛ za. Ɛnkane sɛ wofa Magazine mu a, woberɛ ansaana
watumi afa mu. Na ɛnnɛ deɛ wofa mu a, ɛte sɛ woretwa
paano.
(Translation: A friend of mine is a driver. He says he
works for fuel stations because he uses all his money to
buy fuel, so he gets nothing to take home. When we came
here, there is a woman who sells Waakye (a local food).
She says, “Oh, President Mahama, when the NDC was
in power, I used to sell seven bowls of Waakye every-
day. Today, it is difcult to sell even three bowls”. So,
Waakye sellers are suffering. The people of Kejetia are
suffering. The Magazine people (local artisans), previ-
ously… ɛyɛ zu, ɛyɛ za (says NDC slogan). Previously, it
was difcult to pass through Magazine. But today, when
you go through, it is like cutting a piece of bread.)
Accusing the NPP of embarking on propaganda and
lies is to indirectly debunk and discredit the NPP’s 2016
electoral victory as genuinely based on reality and the facts
at the time of the elections. It implies that if the NPP had
based their campaign on the real state of affairs, they would
not have won the election. Mahama suggests that he was
not responsible for the electoral loss. Mahama further con-
demns the NPP government of worsening the living condi-
tions of the people (see Example 5), saying that the people
are suffering. To say that Ghanaians are suffering, using the
businesses of drivers, Waakye sellers and the “Magazine” as
examples, is to excite the emotions of the people, drawing
on the persuasive principle of pathos (cf. Ilie, 2004; Char-
teris-Black, 2014).
Closely related to the accusations is “playing the victim”
of unfair political discourse by the opponent. Consider Ex-
amples 5 and 6.
Playing the victim
Playing the victim means blaming someone else for one’s
circumstances. It courts sympathy, manipulates a situation
and people to one’s advantage, as in:
Example 6 (Bolgatanga, Upper-East region, 05/05/2018):
When I was president, I was probably one of the most
criticised and insulted president.
Apologia, Image Repair and Rhetoric in the Defence of Electoral Defeat 5
Example 7 (Aao, Volta region, 09/06/2018):
My brothers and sisters, sometimes, when I have lis-
tened to their lies, I feel very hurt in my heart at some
of the creativity they have in crafting those lies. And
sometimes you feel that it is easy for our country men
to see that ah this is not true, this is a lie. But Goebbels’
propaganda chief said that take a lie and tell it over and
over and over again, and eventually, people will come to
believe it is true. And so sometimes I feel very hurt and
sometimes as human as I am, I feel like coming out and
responding and retorting…
Here, the former President tries to avoid taking respon-
sibility for losing the elections. He describes himself as a
victim of propaganda, leading to the loss of the elections.
Examples 5 and 6 contain emotions, as, for example, “when
I have listened to their lies, I feel very hurt in my heart at
some of the creativity they have in crafting those lies” and
“And so sometimes I feel very hurt and sometimes as human
as I am, I feel like coming out and responding and retort-
ing…”. He appeals to pity (pathos – cf. Ilie, 2004; Charter-
is-Black, 2014), as he plays on the emotions of the people.
Playing victimhood in this sense is to imply that he was not
responsible for what happened.
Throwing a challenge
Mahama threw a challenge to the NPP government to
arrest and prosecute the appointees who were said to be cor-
rupt during the Mahama administration, as considered in Ex-
ample 8, which is in Twi, a Ghanaian language.
Example 8 (Kumasi, Ashanti region, 28/04/2018):
Na neɛ ɛyɛ ahi ne sɛ, ↄmo bɛhwɛ so ayɛ adwuma no
ama Ghana ayɛ yie no ama ahokyere no akↄ famu no,
dabiaa yɛsↄre a yɛse sika sei ayera. Na sika sei ayera a,
yɛ investigation na kyere nkrofoↄ no ɛ. Wo ara na tumi
no hyɛ ne nsa. Naano yɛse TOR [Tema Oil Renery],
150 billion is lost. How can 150 billion be lost? ɛna yɛn
nyinaa daso ɛnante Ghana abonten so? 150 billion ayera
a kyere nkrofoↄ a omo awia 150 billion no eh.
(Translation: What is irritating is that instead of them
working to develop Ghana and reduce the suffering, ev-
ery day, they are complaining that several sums of mon-
ey are missing. If that money is missing, investigate it
and arrest the people. You have the power. Recently, they
said, at TOR, 150 billion is lost. How can 150 billion be
lost? And we are still walking on the streets of Ghana? If
150 billion is missing, arrest those who stole it.)
One thing that became a major campaign issue in the
round up to the 2016 elections was the problem of corruption.
Mahama and his administration were labelled as corrupt, to
the extent that Transparency International (2017: 3, see also
Sarfo-Kantankah, 2018, p. 232) thought that the NDC lost the
2016 elections because of “rampant corruption”. However,
the NDC said that the Opposition was peddling a falsehood.
To hammer home his government’s innocence of corruption,
Mahama challenges the NPP government to investigate, ar-
rest and prosecute members of his government who engaged
in corruption. This is a defensive mechanism aimed at prov-
ing his and his government’s innocence. Mahama employs
the artistic proof of logos (cf. Ilie, 2004; Charteris-Black,
2014) by quoting a gure (150 billion) to support his claim,
that is, if “150 billion is lost”, then it is reasonable that those
responsible are held accountable.
The “God’s will” factor
Mahama sometimes attributed the loss of the 2016 elections
to the will of God. Consider Example 9.
Example 9 (Aao, Volta region, 09/06/2018):
I have always said that the Almighty God will speak.
And if you look at the events of the last one and a half
years, you can see that our God is a living God. Our God
is a living God. The lies they told are unravelling in the
war between truth and lies. Always, lies has an early
victory but eventually the truth will always win. You can
see that recent events are vindicating the NDC.
Mahama’s claim that the NDC’s defeat was sanctioned
by God has been responded to by members of his own party,
including ag-bearer hopefuls of the NDC, such as Ekow
Spio-Garbrah, who is reported to have said: “God speaks to
me, but he has not said that he orchestrated the party’s de-
feat” (Ansah, 2018, n.p), asking Mahama not to bring God
into his defeat (myjoyonline.com, 2018). Ghana is known to
be a very religious country with about 71.2% of Ghanaians
being Christians and 17.6% being Muslims (Ghana Statisti-
cal Service 2012). Many of the followers of these two reli-
gions believe in God’s intervention in the making of leaders
of a country. The interplay between religion and politics has
long been acknowledged; and religion and the God factor is
said to play a crucial role in politics, including the United
States of American politics (see Lambert 2008, who traces
the role of religion in American politics from the 1800s). Re-
ligion occupies a central role in American politics (Weber
& Thornton, 2012), to the extent that, in recent times, the
Democrats are closing the God gap in their political inclina-
tion (Sullivan, 2008). In Ghana, there has been an increased
focus on religion by politicians, especially, “since 2008 … as
a result of the strong relationship that Ghanaians have with
their respective religions” (Boio, 2014, p. 59). Thus, our
political leaders and parties have always exploited the God
factor to inuence the electorate. It is not surprising, there-
fore, that Mahama plays the same religious card to justify the
2016 electoral defeat.
While the foregoing clearly demonstrates how Maha-
ma tried to defend and justify the electoral defeat in 2016,
an examination of the rhetorical strategies he employed in
communicating his defence reveals an equally interesting
phenomenon of how language can be used to effectively
communicate one’s ideas and feelings.
Rhetorical Strategies
Political discourse is characterised by rhetoric, the art of per-
suasion (cf. Charteris-Black, 2014), typied by “the use of
symbolism and language to ensure that a message is encod-
ed in the way desired by the communicator” (Lilleker, 2006,
p. 182). Persuasion is achieved through the strategic use of
language, including the use of rhetorical tools such as meta-
6 ALLS 10(3):1-10
phor, allusion, rhetorical questions and parallelism. Examin-
ing the rhetorical tools is important because the “proper usage
of the tools of language, that is, rhetorical devices such as
parallelism will enable the politician to capture the minds and
interest of his audience” (Sarah, 2015, p. 35). Thus, in this
section, we examine how Mahama used the above-mentioned
rhetorical tools to achieve persuasion, an interactive commu-
nicative process aimed at inuencing the beliefs, attitudes
and behaviour of the audience (Jowett & O’Donnell, 2006).
Metaphor
Metaphors, according to Taiwo (2013), are central to political
discourse as they help to shape the structure of political cate-
gorisation and argumentation. The analysis of metaphor here
is informed by Lakoff and Johnsen’s (1980, 2003) conceptual
metaphor, where metaphor is considered as understanding
and experiencing one kind of thing in terms of another (La-
koff & Johnsen, 2003, p. 5), that is, mapping one conceptual
domain to another domain or regarding one thing as a symbol
of another. Consider examples 10-15, which are metaphors
used by Mahama. While Examples 10, 11 and 12 relate to
accusations and attacks as discussed earlier (sub-section 4.1),
Example 13 concerns Mahama’s acclaim, and Examples 14
and 15 border on bolstering, that is, encouraging the NDC’s
re-organisation. Discussed below are: the metaphor of war
between truth and lie, the metaphor of pay-as-you-go, the
metaphor of football, the Metaphor of the honeymoon, the
metaphor of roots and the metaphor of building blocks.
The metaphor of war between truth and lie. In Example
10, by the concept of war, Mahama structures the relation-
ship between truth and lying.
Example 10 (Aao):
The lies they told are unravelling in the war between
truth and lies. Always, lies has [have] an early victory
but eventually the truth will always win.
This is similar to Lakoff and Johnsen’s (2003) description
of argument as war – which implies a verbal battle, attack,
defence and counterattack. In politics, the issue of propa-
ganda generates a lot of argumentation about which political
groups are honest. Thus, the concept of war used by Maha-
ma portrays truth nding as a long battle and struggle, even
though eventually, there are winners and losers. And usually,
it is the more powerful (in this instance, truth) who win the
war. To say that “the lies they [the NPP] told are unravel-
ling” implies that Mahama is trustworthy and that he will
be exonerated as events unfold. It is a face-saving strategy.
This amounts to attacking the opponent in order to establish
credibility for oneself (cf. Benoit 1999, 2017).
The metaphor of pay-as-you-go. In example 11, Mahama
describes the NPP government’s governance, policy plan-
ning and implementation strategies as a mobile telephony
(pay-as-you-go) deal.
Example 11 (Bolgatanga):
But there are many other things that this government is
doing in an adhoc manner. It is as if they are governing
in a manner called ‘government as you go’. Because for
every programme that is rolled up, there is no guideline
and that is the problem – ‘government as you go’.
A pay-as-you-go deal refers to a system where a person
or an organisation pays for the cost of services as and when
they are rendered without a contract. Thus, referring to the
government as “government as you go” metaphorically de-
picts the NPP government as embarking on ad-hoc measures
and policies, without plan. This is an attack on policy (cf.
Benoit, 2017) and an indirect call for the change of the NPP
government in the 2020 elections.
The metaphor of football. Example 12 (spoken in Fanti, a
Ghanaian language) employs a football metaphor, in which
spectators often give commentaries as though they were ex-
pert footballers, but when they are given the opportunity to
play, they are found wanting.
Example 12 (Cape Coast):
Me kaa dɛ sɛ yɛrebↄ football na wo tse nkyɛn a, wodwen
dɛ ball a wↄrebↄ no ebotum appoint captain a ↄwↄ foot-
ball team no mu. Ntsi sɛ wↄfrɛw sɛ bɛbo ball no bi a, ɛho
na ebohu wo smoothness level.
(Translation: I said that when they are playing football
match and you are watching it, you think that you can
appoint the captain in the football team. But when you
are called to play, you realise that you cannot play.)
This describes the NPP as being unable to execute their
mandate as governors of the country, even though, in oppo-
sition, they touted their capability to run the affairs of the
country. This reinforces the accusations and attacks Mahama
makes against the NPP government.
The Metaphor of the honeymoon. In Example 13, Maha-
ma compares the period (7th January-5th November 2017) of
the NPP government as a honeymoon period. It is a means
of portraying himself as a reasonable, thoughtful person who
abhors opposition for its sake.
Example 13 (Cape Coast):
I have refrained from commenting on national issues be-
cause I think that when the new government comes into
power, you should give it a honeymoon so that it can
settle in.
Allowing a government a free period without criticising
it indicates a rational person. This is an attempt at justifying
his criticisms against the government and making the criti-
cisms credible, after all, the honeymoon is over. As noted by
Palmatier (2000, p. 182),
the honeymoon metaphor has been extended in modern
times to the relationship between a newly elected of-
cial, such as the president of the United States, and the
loyal opposition with whom he/she must deal. It has be-
come a custom to give the president a ‘break’ from op-
position during his/her rst few months in ofce – i.e., a
honeymoon.
The period of the honeymoon implies ceasing all oppo-
sition criticisms and censure, such as Mahama having “re-
frained from commenting on national issues”, in order to
allow the government to settle down, plan and implement
its policies. It is aimed at enhancing Mahama’s credibility
(ethos – an appeal to the character of the speaker (cf. Ilie,
2004; Charteris-Black, 2014)).
The metaphor of roots. Example 14 metaphorically struc-
tures the Branches1 of the NDC as roots (the Branches are
roots).
Apologia, Image Repair and Rhetoric in the Defence of Electoral Defeat 7
Example 14 (Wa):
If the branches are strong, the party is strong because the
branches are actually the root of the party – they hold
the party up. If a tree does not have strong roots and the
wind blows, it can blow the tree down.
Roots are a metaphor for strong support to hold the Party
together; to be fruitful, the tree needs strong roots. Thus, the
NDC needs strong support from the Branches to be united,
strong and successful in its attempt to recapture power. The
overall aim is to encourage unity and strength within the Par-
ty. The same concept is echoed in Example 15, the metaphor
of building blocks.
The metaphor of building blocks (cf. Lakoff & Johnsen,
2003) is used to structure the concept of unity and peace.
This means that unity and peace need to be constructed like
a building.
Example 15 (Aao):
You need building blocks to work towards the achieve-
ment of unity and peace. And these unity walks have
just been one of those building blocks.
Mahama sees peace building as methodical, a conscious
attempt in which small parts are assembled to achieve a com-
plete whole, suggesting the challenges involved in building
peace and unity. Thus, Mahama implies that the NDC need
to reconcile their differences to, in his words, “re-uniting our
party and putting it in a position to ght the next elections”.
The use of metaphors allows Mahama to give a symbolic
and picturesque view of the current and future state of the
NDC; it hammers home the real concerns of the Party. Con-
sequently, we do agree with Charteris-Black (2004, p. 247)
that “metaphor selection in particular types of discourse is
governed by the rhetorical aim of persuasion”. Mahama’s
purpose in the speeches was mainly persuasive, as he aimed
at convincing, stimulating, motivating and inuencing the
beliefs and attitudes of the members of the NDC.
Allusion
Mahama alluded to George Orwell’s Animal Farm to de-
scribe the NPP government as practising politics of dis-
crimination, after having deceived Ghanaians that, if they
(NPP) won power, “there shall be no discrimination” on any
grounds but they are now practising Animal Farm politics:
“all animals are equal but some are more equal than others”.
Example 16 (Cape Coast):
… the constitution of Ghana says there shall be no dis-
crimination, and that you shall do justice to all manner
of people, that is what the constitution of Ghana says.
Then you come and say … have you read Animal Farm
before? It says all animals are equal; that is how they
started. When they did the revolution, they said all ani-
mals are equal. Then when Napoleon and the pigs start-
ed enjoying, they had to justify why they were enjoying
so they said all animals are equal but some are more
equal than others.
This is an allusion (an indirect reference to someone or
something) to a literary text which conveys a strong political
underpinning. Animal Farm is a fable that tells the story of
the animals of a farm revolting against their human own-
er and overthrowing him for being cruel to them, and ruled
by their own kind only to slither into a more brutal tyranny.
Mahama suggests that the people of Ghana voted against the
NDC government based on complaints of hardship and dis-
crimination only to slide into a more serious hardship and
discrimination under the NPP administration. The reference
to Animal Farm is a logical appeal (logos) (cf. Ilie, 2004;
Charteris-Black, 2014) intended to make the audience draw
equivalences between Animal Farm and their situation in or-
der to recognise the mistake they made in voting for the NPP.
Similarly, the reference to the “constitution of Ghana” is a
logical appeal aimed at making the audience realise that their
constitutional rights are being trampled upon.
Rhetorical questions
Rhetorical questions (RQs) are “questions that are not meant
to be answered, but rather to convey a message that would
not be as memorable and as persuasive had it been expressed
as a straightforward statement” (Špago, 2016, p. 103). They
are a way of asserting a point by means of a question. Con-
sider the italicised questions in Examples 17, 18 and 19. Of-
ten, the questioner answers the question him-/her-self, as in
Example 17: “They are also cutting swords again for proj-
ects that we had cut sword for already”.
Example 17 (Volta):
Those projects that they described as photo shop, they
are going round and commissioning them today. But you
know the most shocking? They are also cutting swords
again for projects that we had cut sword for already.
Example 18 (Volta):
They cannot even give credit where it is due. What does
it take away from you if you give credit? President Raw-
lings carried out the feasibility study for the Bui Dam
project. President Kuffour came and found the money
and started the project. When President Mills came,
the money President Kuffour found was not enough so
President Mills went to China and got them to give us
additional money. The project was nally nished under
President Mahama. When I went to commission the Bui
Dam project, I invited President Kuffour to come and
sit down and I told the whole country. I said this man
started this project. What do you lose? When President
Mills was commissioning the N1 project, he invited
President Kuffour to come and sit down … [because] it
is President Kuffour who started it. What do you lose? It
shows the pettiness, low standards, immaturity of NPP
as a government.
Example 19 (Bolgatanga):
When we were in government, they said oh the size of
the government is too high; you must reduce the size
of government. Then when they come into government
and they appoint 110 ministers, 909 presidential staff-
ers, then they say oh, it is not about quantity; it is about
quality. Who determines quality? You know, when they
are (…) family and friends, so it is a family and friends
government. Then when they come into government,
they appoint all their relatives into government and
when you talk, they say oh, it doesn’t matter but it is
8 ALLS 10(3):1-10
whether they are qualied. Who doesn’t have relatives
who are qualied? We have many relatives who are
qualied who could have helped in my government.
According to Špago (2016, p. 103), RQs are widely used
in different languages and contexts, including politics and
communication “[d]ue to their persuasive effect and commu-
nicative effectiveness”. RQs are mental-response questions
(Ilie, 1994), and, therefore, their use indirectly encourages
audience’s cognitive engagement and involvement in a dis-
course, thereby strengthening the memorability of the mes-
sage. Ilie (1994, p. 128) sees RQs as “... a question used as
a challenging statement to convey the addresser’s commit-
ment to its implicit answer, in order to induce the addressee’s
mental recognition of its obviousness and the acceptance,
verbalized or non-verbalized, of its validity”. In Example
18, the response to the questions is obvious: you do not lose
anything. This unspoken response is emphasised by the ex-
amples given by Mahama to illustrate how other Presidents
invited their predecessors to the inauguration of projects
initiated by those predecessors. In Example 19, Who deter-
mines quality? rhetorically elicits the response nobody, em-
phasising the subjectivity of what quality means. Again, it
is obvious that every president has relatives whom they can
appoint into ofces. All the RQs used by Mahama are meant
to highlight what he sees as “the pettiness, low standards,
immaturity of NPP as a government”, which indirectly proj-
ects Mahama as critical, important, mature and trustworthy
– an image repairing strategy. Thus, rhetorical questions can
be used to advance, reinforce or reject a belief, an assump-
tion or an opinion and manipulate the audience (Ilie, 1994).
Parallelism
Parallelism refers to the expression of several ideas in a se-
ries of similar or the same or equivalent grammatical form/
structure, for example, words and words, phrases and phras-
es or clauses and clauses (cf. Al-Ameedi & Mukhef, 2017).
According to Johnstone (1991, p. 33) “[t]o say that two
linguistic structures are parallel is to say that they share a
common structural frame, and that within this frame, some
element or elements differ in form” even though “the ele-
ments that differ always stand in close relationship to one
another”, as illustrated by Example 20. While the rst, the
third and the last structures have the form: Subject + Verb
+ Object, the other three have the form: Subject + Verb +
Complement.
Example 20 (Aao, Volta):
Our opponents (Subject) accused (Verb) us (Verb) of in-
competence and these same opponents (Subject) are dis-
playing (Verb) the most crux super incompetence ever
witnessed in the history of Ghana (Object).
Our opponents who accused us of being corrupt (Sub-
ject) are proving (Verb) in government to be – and using
Manesseh Azuri’s words – ‘sophisticated eves’ (Com-
plement).
Our opponents who accused us of subjecting Ghana-
ians to hardship (Subject) are putting (Verb) Ghanaians
through the most severe hardship ever experienced in
Ghana’s history (Object).
Our opponents who accused us without any evidence of
running a family and friends’ government (Subject) are
proving (Verb) to be the most nepotic government ever
in the history of Ghana (Complement).
Our opponents who accused us of excessive borrowing
(Subject) are proving (Verb) to be the government that
has borrowed at the fastest rate ever in the history of
Ghana. (Complement).
Our opponents who accused us of photo shop projects
(Subject)… are going round and commissioning (Verb)
those photo shop projects (Object).
Parallelism provides rhetorical emphasis to improve the
understanding and the memorability of an idea in a more
forceful manner, by drawing attention to a particular part of
the message and making it stand out (Al-Ameedi & Mukhef,
2017). The criticism and the persuasive power contained in
the above parallel structures are intensied by the idea of X
yet Y, a contrastive pair or an antithesis, consisting of two
parts in opposition (Sarah, 2015). Here, Mahama creates a
sense of surprise between what the NPP criticised and what
they are practising, that is, preaching virtue but practising
vice. The parallel structures make the criticism espoused by
Mahama “more concrete, vivid and telling” (Iványi, 1993,
p. 50) thereby aiding memorability of the message just as
rhetorical questions do (cf. Ilie, 1994). The persuasive power
of the parallel structures is heightened by the repetition of our
opponent. The repetition gives the message an emotional em-
phasis (cf. Johnstone, 1994) and adds to the persuasiveness
of the message.
The rhetorical tools discussed above were designed to
boost the image repair strategies employed by Mahama to
deny responsibility for the 2016 electoral loss. Mahama used
the rhetorical devices to concretise his message and make
it vivid in order to enhance its believability. By using those
devices, Mahama was able to create a picturesque view of
his accusations and attacks, his credibility and the unity, re-
inforcement and strength needed by the NDC to reorganise
itself to face the 2020 elections. In short, the rhetorical tools
helped to sharpen Mahama’s rhetorical appeals.
CONCLUSION
Based on the concepts of apologia, image repair and rheto-
ric, this paper sought to examine how John Mahama, a for-
mer President of Ghana, through his speeches at the National
Democratic Congress (NDC) party’s Unity Walks, attempted
to discredit the claim that he was responsible for the NDC’s
2016 electoral defeat, while trying to regain a credible reputa-
tion and prepare the grounds for his comeback to contest the
2020 presidential elections as the standard bearer of the NDC.
The ndings of the paper indicate that the former president did
not accept responsibility for the electoral loss. He employed
numerous indirect ways to deny responsibility for the defeat.
Mahama evaded responsibility by engaging in bolstering, ac-
cusation/attack, playing the victim, throwing a challenge, and
the God’s will factor as defence strategies in order to repair
his image. Mahama accused the New Patriotic Party (NPP) of
embarking on a propagandist campaign and insults, such as
he and his government being tagged as corrupt, to manipulate
Apologia, Image Repair and Rhetoric in the Defence of Electoral Defeat 9
Ghanaians to vote against the NDC; Mahama played the vic-
tim. By way of proving his and his government’s innocence
of corruption, Mahama threw a challenge to the NPP govern-
ment to arrest and prosecute all those who were thought to
be corrupt. Mahama also described the defeat as being God’s
will, because God wanted Ghanaians to experience the deeds
of the NDC’s administration and those of the NPP’s admin-
istration so that they could judge for themselves which of the
two had the requisite credibility to govern Ghana. Mahama
utilised the Aristotelian appeals of logos, ethos and pathos to
boost his persuasion. Again, to enhance the persuasiveness
of his defence strategies, Mahama deployed several rhetori-
cal tools such as metaphor, allusion, rhetorical questions and
parallelism. The analysis further reveals that, as noted in the
literature (cf. Benoit, 1997; Sheldon & Sallot, 2008), some of
the image repair strategies espoused by Benoit (1995, 2015),
for example, outright denial and mortication, hardly apply
to (certain) political contexts – Mahama’s defence was in-
directly expressed. The paper concludes that combining the
concepts of apologia, image repair and rhetoric in the analy-
sis of political discourse can illuminate the study of political
discourse analysis and offer a comprehensive understanding
of communicating defence and image repair.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
I wish to acknowledge Mr Frank Mensah, a teaching assis-
tant at the Department of English, University of Cape Coast,
for his assistance in the transcription of the data.
END NOTE
1. Units of the Party at the grassroots
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Data Links
1. https://www.primenewsghana.com/politics/photos-
john-mahama-leads-nal-ndc-unity-walk-in-aoa.html
(Mahama at NDC Unity Walk at Aao, Volta region,
9 June 2018)
2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UqJMg8rSfNI
(Mahama at NDC Unity Walk in Kumasi, Ashanti re-
gion, 28 April 2018)
3. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3LoT6Q0u0M
(Mahama at NDC Unity Walk in Wa, Upper-West re-
gion, 7 April 2018)
4. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DN19tsLlVA (Ma-
hama at NDC Unity Walk at Bolgatanga, Upper-East
region, 5 May 2018)
5. https://youtu.be/aELFCWUwrGQ (Mahama at NDC Uni-
ty Walk at Tarkwa, Western region, 25 November 2017)
6. https://youtu.be/NIMFnjRzfXk (Mahama at NDC Unity
Walk in Cape Coast, Central region, 5 November, 2017)
7. https://youtu.be/4pKw-TTiVWY (Mahama at NDC
Unity Walk in Techiman, Brong-Ahafo region, 6 Janu-
ary 2018)